I may not be there yet, but the journey has begun!

Apologies; I have always found them funny. As if a sorry could undo all that you ever did. How many times have we heard, to forgive is divine. As if. Fool yourself no end; the bitterness of a wrongdoing doesn’t wash away with that one word. One sorry doesn’t take away the pain and the tears that caused it. Then what does?

Well, I don’t know what cleanses the pain that follows a betrayal, a spiteful word or any form of hurt. A un-repenting sorry doesn’t for sure. Time does. Maybe. Some questions don’t come with readymade answers, right? Hence the urge to write. I write when I feel the need to find answers. To questions such as these. Not that I find answers; not always. I write nonetheless.

Sorry, I caused you pain. Forget all that happened and start afresh. How many times have we said this and heard this! Maybe you do start afresh. Maybe you forgive. But do you forget? The wounds may heal. But the scars stay. Don’t they? Trust once broken; is it ever regained?

Some say time heals. Yes it does. But the lesson stays. In a crooked corner of your mind. Only to resurface when you see a pattern. A pattern that is on the verge of repeating itself. Old habits die hard. Not always; sometimes. We expect it to happen again. And like Rhonda Byrne says, the universe conspires. The inevitable strikes.

Aren’t we all in this constant mode of protecting ourselves from our own mistakes? Building walls in the expectation of a pain that might recur. Deliberately finding patterns from the past. The faces may have changed but the scenes repeat. Weird, ain’t it? Maybe not. We forcefully fit our past into our present. And thus ruin a future that awaits us.

What if we had gracefully accepted a sorry that was offered to us. And let the mistake go. Easier said than done, of course. We all like control. And to let go is like giving up control. Well, life isn’t fun without its challenges; and giving up control is a challenge. Embracing this change is a battle. Given the warriors that we are, isn’t it a bit unfair to lose a battle without fighting. So maybe, this battle is worth a try.

And to think of the other side, what if we as seekers of forgiveness mend our ways; make a conscious effort to wipe away the hurt that we caused. Acknowledging the mistake doesn’t come easy though. Our inflated egos tell us a thousand times, we did no wrong. Or okay I did something wrong and I said sorry. What worth does that sorry hold if you don’t mean it? Or worse still, repeat it and say sorry again. And then yet again. Sounds familiar?

Our brains run complex algorithms analyzing patterns of data when a wrong is done to us. And when we do wrong, more often than not, we tilt the scales in our favor. A guilt trip is a rare phenomenon. What if we could reverse the responses?